Saudi Diplomat Calls Trump a ‘Tweet Monster,’ Worries About Reliability as an Ally
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(CNSNews.com) – Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Great Britain this week called President Trump a “tweet monster” whose recent decision to pull back U.S. troops from northern Syrian ahead of a Turkish military offensive “doesn’t give one incredible confidence” about the administration’s reliability as an ally.
Khalid bin Bandar was speaking at a think tank in London, three days after the Pentagon announced that the U.S. was sending more forces to Saudi Arabia, bringing to 3,000 the number of troops authorized for deployment in the kingdom over the past month. He did acknowledge that move.
During an event at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Khalid was asked a question contrasting Trump’s combative early response to a missile and drone attack on Saudi oil installations last month blamed on Iran, with – in the questioner’s words – “nothing happening."
(A day after the attack, which knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production, Trump tweeted that the U.S. was “locked and loaded,” but awaiting word from the Saudis as to whom they held responsible. The administration later responded by imposing new sanctions on Iran, with targets including its central bank.)
Khalid began cautiously, noting he was the ambassador to London, not Washington – where his sister holds that post.
“I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the president, you know I’m here in the U.K. to further relationships with the U.K.”
“But I will say that we, you know, ‘locked and loaded’ came from the – you know, he is a, a tweet monster, if you like. He loves engaging with people on social media, etcetera, and I think, you know, he does so very quickly. And sometimes it’s just his initial reaction.”
Asked how the Saudis view Trump’s recent moves in northern Syria, Khalid replied, “We don’t like it at all.”
“I’ll be a little bit more, uh, undiplomatic in that I think it’s a disaster for the region,” he said.
Khalid went on to say that in “every single disaster in the last ten years in the Middle East” Saudi Arabia has not benefited but has on the contrary borne the cost, even though it has tried to play its part for the wider good, for example by helping to keep oil prices down.
Later, he was asked whether Riyadh still considers the Trump administration to be a “trustworthy, consistent and reliable ally.”
“Luckily I’m not the ambassador to Washington,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be addressing that issue because I’m not in Washington. And politics – a lot happens behind the scenes. As much happens behind the scenes as in front.”
“I’m not privy to all that,” he continued. “Even though it’s my sister who’s ambassador, she doesn’t tell me everything – like much of my life, happy to advise but very difficult to share information.”
“But I think, I’ll be a little vague if you don’t mind. We are concerned, no question. What has happened in Turkey – in Syria with Turkey, and pulling out the troops, it doesn’t give one incredible confidence.”
“But then we saw them sending quite a lot of anti-missile batteries to Saudi and some troops to help us manage the northern defenses,” he acknowledged. “It’s difficult to judge.”
Khalid is a prince whose sister, Reema bint Bandar bin Sultan, became ambassador to the United States early this year. Their father, Bandar bin Sultan, was ambassador to Washington from 1983-2005, and the kingdom’s intelligence chief from 2012-2014.
On October 11, three days before the RUSI event, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the deployment to Saudi Arabia of two additional fighter squadrons and support personnel, one Air Expeditionary Wing, as well as two Patriot and one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense systems.
“Taken together with other deployments I have extended or authorized within the last month, this involves about 3,000 United States forces,” he said.
He noted that, since May, the Pentagon has sent an additional 14,000 troops to the Middle East, “in response to Iranian provocation.”
US sends 3,000 more
troops to defend Saudi monarchy
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that
3,000 more US troops are being deployed to Saudi Arabia to defend the
blood-soaked monarchy led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and prepare for
war against Iran.
The deployment includes two fighter
squadrons, one Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW), two more Patriot missile
batteries, and one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD).
According to a Pentagon statement
Friday, the US Secretary of Defense phoned Crown Prince bin Salman (who also
holds the post of Saudi minister of defense) to inform him of the coming
reinforcements, which he said were meant “to assure and enhance the defense of
Saudi Arabia.”
The Pentagon also acknowledged that
the latest escalation brings the number of additional troops sent into the
Persian Gulf region since May to 14,000. They have been accompanied by an
armada of US warships and a B-52-led bomber task force. The Pentagon has also
announced that an aircraft carrier-led battle group will remain in the Persian
Gulf.
While initiated as a supposed
response to unspecified threats from Iran, the US buildup in the Persian Gulf
region has constituted from its outset a military provocation and preparation
for a war of aggression. This military buildup has accompanied Washington’s
so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sweeping economic sanctions that are
tantamount to a state of war. The aim, as the Trump administration has stated
publicly, is to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero. By depriving Iran of
its principal source of export income, Washington hopes to starve the Iranian
people into submission and pave the way to regime change, bringing to power a
US puppet regime in Tehran.
The latest military buildup was
announced in the immediate aftermath of an attack on an Iranian tanker in the
Red Sea, about 60 miles from the Saudi port of Jeddah.
The National Iranian Tanker Co.
reported that its oil tanker, the Sabiti, was struck twice by explosives early
Friday morning, leaving two holes in the vessel and causing a brief oil spill
into the Red Sea.
While Iranian state news media blamed
the damage on missile attacks, a spokesman for the company told the Wall
Street Journal that the company was not sure of the cause.
Some security analysts have suggested
that the fairly minor damage to the vessel could have been caused by limpet
mines. Such mines were apparently used last June when two tankers—one Japanese
and one Norwegian-owned—were hit by explosions in the Sea of Oman. At the time,
Washington blamed the attacks on Iran, without providing any evidence. Tehran
denied the charge, saying that it sent teams to rescue crew member of the
damaged tankers.
The Iranian Students News Agency
(ISNA) quoted an unnamed Iranian government official as stating that the
Iranian tanker had been the victim of a “terrorist attack.”
“Examination of the details and
perpetrators of this dangerous action continues and will be announced after
reaching the result,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.
The National Iranian Tanker Co.
issued a statement saying that there was no evidence that Saudi Arabia was
behind the attack.
The incident raised the specter of an
escalating tanker war that could disrupt shipping through the strategic Strait
of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows. News of
the attack sent crude oil prices spiking by 2 percent.
In addition to the June attacks on
the tankers in the Gulf of Oman, in July British commandos, acting on a request
from Washington, stormed an Iranian super tanker, the Grace 1, in waters off
the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. In apparent retaliation, Iranian
Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged Stena Impero for what Tehran
charged were violations of international maritime regulations as it passed
through the Strait of Hormuz. Both tankers were subsequently released.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo issued a statement charging that the Iranian super tanker,
renamed the Adrian Darya 1, had offloaded its oil in Syria in violation of
European Union sanctions and a pledge made by Tehran to the UK at the time of
the vessel’s release. He demanded provocatively that “EU members should condemn
this action, uphold the rule of law, and hold Iran accountable.”
The Trump administration, which in
May of last year unilaterally and illegally abrogated the 2015 nuclear
agreement between Tehran and the major powers has been pressuring the European
signatories to the deal—Germany, France and the UK—to follow suit.
While the respective governments of
the three countries have insisted that they still support the nuclear
agreement, they have repeatedly bowed to Washington’s war drive, while failing
to take any significant actions to counter the effects of the US “maximum
pressure” campaign and deliver to Tehran the sanctions relief and economic
normalization that it was promised in exchange for curtailing its nuclear
program.
Most recently, the three European
governments backed Washington in blaming Iran for a September 14 attack on
Saudi oil facilities that temporarily shut down half of the kingdom’s oil
production and sent crude prices spiraling by 20 percent—again without providing
a shred of proof.
Washington is seeking to topple the
Iranian regime or bully it into accepting complete subordination to US
imperialist predatory interests in the energy-rich and geostrategically vital
Middle East.
The US sanctions regime and military
buildup have placed the entire region on a hair trigger for the outbreak of a
catastrophic war that could engulf not only the Middle East, but the entire
planet.
All of the regimes involved in the
escalating conflict are gripped by crises that make the drive to war all the
more explosive.
The impact of the sanctions on Iran’s
economy has been devastating. It is estimated that oil exports last month fell
to just 400,000 barrels per day (b/d), compared to 1.95 million b/d in
September 2018. Left with little means of combating spiraling inflation and
growing unemployment, Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is caught between
intense pressure from imperialism on the one hand, and the growth of social
opposition among Iranian workers and poor on the other.
The Saudi monarchy is confronting the
debacle of its four-year-old and near genocidal war against the people of
Yemen, made possible by the weapons and logistical aid provided by Washington,
even as Prince bin Salman remains a global pariah for his ordering of the
grisly assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year in
Istanbul.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu,
incapable of forming a new government after two elections and confronting
criminal indictments, has grown increasingly concerned over the apparent lack
of appetite by the Persian Gulf Sunni monarchies for military confrontation
with Iran and Washington’s failure to carry out military strikes after the
downing of its drone in June and the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities last
month. Clearly, Tel Aviv, which has cast Iran as its strategic enemy, would
have a motive for attacking Iranian tankers in the hopes of provoking a
response that could lead to US military action.
And then there is Trump. He has
proclaimed his determination to halt the “endless wars” in the Middle East and
provoked a political firestorm by pulling back a relative handful of US troops
in Syria, allowing Turkey to launch a long-planned attack on the Pentagon’s
erstwhile proxy force, the Kurdish-dominated YPG militia.
Faced with an escalating political
crisis and growing social tensions within the US, along with an impeachment
investigation by the Democrats in Congress that is focused entirely on the
national security concerns of the CIA and the Pentagon, he has ample motive for
launching a new war.
While the Democrats’ exclusive focus
on Trump’s failure to pursue a sufficiently bellicose policy against Russia and
prosecute the war for regime change in Syria has allowed the US president to
absurdly posture as an opponent of war, the reality is that he has overseen a
staggering increase in military spending designed to prepare for “great power”
confrontations, particularly with China.
Meanwhile, whatever his political
pretense, Trump has done nothing to end any of the wars in the Middle East.
While he has ordered US troops to pull back, allowing the Turkish invasion,
none of them have been withdrawn from Syria.
With the latest buildup of US forces
in Saudi Arabia, Washington is preparing, behind the backs of the working
class, to launch a catastrophic military conflict with Iran. The most urgent
task posed by these developments is the building of a global antiwar movement
led by the working class. This movement must be armed with a socialist and
internationalist program to unify working people in the United States, Europe
and the Middle East in a common struggle against imperialist war and its
source, the capitalist system.
TRUMP AND THE
MURDERING 9-11 MUSLIM SAUDIS…
Why is the Swamp Keeper
and his family of parasites up their ar$es??
WHAT WILL TRUMP AND HIS
PARASITIC FAMILY DO FOR MONEY???
JUST ASK THE SAUDIS!
JOHN DEAN: Not so far. This has been right by the letter of the special counsel’s
charter. He’s released the document. What I’m looking for is relief and
understanding that there’s no witting or unwitting likelihood that the
President is an agent of Russia. That’s when I’ll feel comfortable, and no
evidence even hints at that. We don’t have that yet. We’re still in the process
of unfolding the report to look at it. And its, as I say, if [Attornery General
William Barr] honors his word, we’ll know more soon.
“Our entire crony capitalist system,
Democrat and
Republican alike, has become a
kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world
hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided
by its elite.” ---
- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES DONALD TRUMP:
Pathological liar, swindler, con man, huckster, golfing cheat, charity
foundation fraudster, tax evader, adulterer, porn whore chaser and servant of
the Saudis dictators
THE TRUMP FAMILY FOUNDATION SLUSH FUND…. Will they see jail?
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!.... We know where they live!
“Underwood is a Democrat and is seeking millions of dollars in
penalties. She wants Trump and his eldest children barred from running other
charities.”
Opinion: Trump And Pompeo Have Enabled A Saudi Cover-Up Of
The Khashoggi Killing
October
2, 201911:45 AM ET
AARON DAVID MILLER
RICHARD SOKOLSKY
In the
weeks following the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump
spent more time praising
Saudi Arabia as a very important ally than he did reacting to the killing.
Hasan
Jamali/AP
Aaron
David Miller (@aarondmiller2) is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace and a former State Department Middle East analyst, adviser
and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author
most recently of the End
of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President.
Richard
Sokolsky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, worked in the State Department for six different
administrations and was a member of the secretary of state's Office of Policy
Planning from 2005 to 2015.
It has
been a year since Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist
Jamal Khashoggi entered Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul where he was slain
and dismembered. There is still no objective or comprehensive Saudi or American
accounting of what occurred, let alone any real accountability.
The Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's admission in a recent CBS interview that he takes "full responsibility," while
denying foreknowledge of the killing or that he ordered it, sweeps under the
rug the lengths to which the Saudis have gone to obscure the truth about their
involvement in the killing and cover-up.
The
Saudi campaign of obfuscation, denial and cover-up would never have gotten off
the ground had it not been for the Trump administration's support over the past
year. The president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not only refused to
distance themselves from the crown prince, known by his initials MBS, but also
actively worked to relegitimize him. The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump
acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi
relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status. In short, without
Trump, the attempted makeover — such as it is — would not have been possible.
The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump
acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi
relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status.
Weak
administration response
The
administration's weak and feckless response to Khashoggi's killing was
foreshadowed a year before it occurred. In May 2017, in an unusual break with
precedent, Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his inaugural presidential trip; gave
his son-in-law the authority to manage the MBS file, which he did with the
utmost secrecy; and made it unmistakably clear that Saudi money, oil, arm
purchases and support for the administration's anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli
policies would elevate the U.S.-Saudi "special relationship" to a new
level.
Predictably,
therefore, the administration's reaction to Khashoggi's killing was shaped by a
desire to manage the damage and preserve the relationship. In the weeks
following Khashoggi's death, Trump spent more time praising Saudi Arabia as a
very important ally, especially as a purchaser of U.S. weapons and goods, than he did reacting to the killing. Trump
vowed to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi killing but focused more on
defending the crown prince, saying this was another example of being "guilty before being
proven innocent."
Those
pledges to investigate and impose accountability would continue to remain
hollow. Over the past year, Trump and Pompeo have neither criticized nor
repudiated Saudi actions that have harmed American interests in the Middle
East. Two months after Khashoggi's death, the administration, in what Pompeo
described as an "initial step," imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi individuals implicated
in the killing. But no others have been forthcoming, and the visa restrictions
that were imposed are meaningless because none of the sanctioned Saudis would be foolish enough to seek entry into
the United States.
What's
more, the administration virtually ignored a congressional resolution imposing sanctions on the Saudis
for human rights abuses and vetoed another bipartisan resolution that would
have ended U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia's inhumane military
campaign in Yemen.
The
Saudis opened a trial in January of 11 men implicated in the killing, but the
proceedings have been slow and secretive, leading the United Nations' top human
rights expert to declare that "the trial underway in Saudi Arabia will not
deliver credible accountability." Despite accusations that the crown
prince's key adviser Saud al-Qahtani was involved in the killing, he's still
advising MBS, has not stood trial and will likely escape punishment.
A year later, there are still no reports of convictions or serious punishment.
Legitimizing
Mohammed bin Salman
The Trump
administration has not only given the crown prince a pass on the Khashoggi
killing, but it has also worked assiduously to remove his pariah status and
rehabilitate his global image. Barely two months after the 2018 slaying, Trump
was exchanging pleasantries with the crown prince at the Group of 20
summit in
Buenos Aires and holding out prospects of spending more time with him. Then
this past June, at the G-20 in Osaka, Japan, Trump sang his praises while
dodging questions about the killing. "It's an honor to be with the crown
prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in
the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia," Trump said.
And you
can bet that when Saudi Arabia hosts the G-20, scheduled to be held in its
capital of Riyadh in November 2020, the Trump administration will be smiling as
its rehab project takes another step in its desired direction.
What
the U.S. should have done
Trump has
failed to impose any serious costs or constraints on Saudi Arabia for the
killing of a U.S. newspaper columnist who resided in Virginia or for the
kingdom's aggressive policies, from Yemen to Qatar. In the wake of the
Khashoggi killing, the administration should have made it unmistakably clear,
both publicly and privately, that it expected a comprehensive and credible
accounting and investigation. It should
have suspended high-level contacts and arms sales with the kingdom for a period
of time. And to make the point, the administration should have supported at
least one congressional resolution taking the Saudis to task, in addition to
triggering the Magnitsky Act, which would have required a U.S. investigation; a
report to Congress; and sanctions if warranted.
Back
to business as usual
The dark
stain of the crown prince's apparent involvement in Khashoggi's death will not
fade easily. But for Trump and Pompeo, it pales before the great expectations
they still maintain for the kingdom to confront and contain their common enemy,
Iran, as well as support the White House's plan for Middle East peace, defeat
jihadists in the region and keep the oil spigot open.
Most of
these goals are illusory. Saudi Arabia is a weak, fearful and unreliable ally.
The kingdom has introduced significant social and cultural reforms but has
imposed new levels of repression and authoritarianism. Its reckless policies
toward Yemen and Qatar have expanded, not contracted, opportunities for Iran,
while the Saudi military has demonstrated that, even after spending billions to
buy America's most sophisticated weapons, it still can't defend itself without
American help.
Meanwhile,
recent attacks on critical Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blames on Iran
have helped rally more American and international support for the kingdom.
When it
comes to the U.S.-Saudi relationship and the kingdom's callous reaction to
Khashoggi's killing, the president and his secretary of state have been
derelict in their duty: They have not only failed to advance American strategic
interests but also undermined America's values in the process.
WHO IS FINANCING ALL THE TRUMP AND
SON-IN-LAW’S REFINANCING SCAMS???
FOLLOW THE MONEY!
"I doubt that Trump understands -- or cares about --
what message he's sending. Wealthy Saudis, including members of the extended
royal family, have been his patrons for years, buying his distressed properties
when he needed money. In the early 1990s, a Saudi prince purchased Trump's
flashy yacht so that the then-struggling businessman could come up with cash to
stave off personal bankruptcy, and later, the prince bought a share of the
Plaza Hotel, one of Trump's many business deals gone bad. Trump also sold an
entire floor of his landmark Trump Tower condominium to the Saudi government in
2001."
“The Wahhabis finance thousands of
madrassahs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming
fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the
Persian Gulf.” AMIL
IMANI
I recommend that Ignatius read Raymond
Ibrahim's outstanding book Sword and Scimitar, which contains accounts of dynastic
succession in the Muslim monarchies of the Middle East, where standard
operating procedure for a new monarch on the death of his father was to
strangle all his brothers. Yes, it's awful. But it has
been happening for a very long time. And it's not going to change
quickly, no matter how outraged we pretend to be. MONICA SHOWALTER
Images
of 9/11: A Visual Remembrance
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/11/images-911-visual-remembrance/
11 Sep 20184,056
The whole world experienced the attacks of September 11, 2001, in real
time. Videos, photos, and audio captured the horror wreaked that day by Islamic
jihadists and the heroism of ordinary Americans. In our effort to never
forget, Breitbart News provides you a visual remembrance of that fateful
day when the world changed.
The Islamic hijackers on
American Airlines Flight 11 crash it into the north tower of the World Trade
Center (1 WTC) at 8:46am.
The first five minutes of
cable coverage.
And over the years, the country rebuilt and the memorials arose…
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